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The Concept
The association between classic suiting and stiffness is by no means a new one. For the entirely of their existence, suit pants and jackets have been designed around static dress forms. The body inside the suit was never really considered, leaving us with 2-dimensional garments that aren’t dynamic enough to take on real life and all the movement that entails.
We wanted to develop a jacket and pants that could keep up. Something designed around the human body, instead of a loose interpretation of it. And we soon realized that the core difference came down to the material.
The Hypothesis
What if we overhauled the material? Traditional suiting material is woven, which means that yarns are pulled together tightly for a slighter more dense textile. If we tried a different technique, though, we could alleviate that stiff feel.
That’s when we landed on the idea of a knit. Not a knit in the sweater sense, but a knit that's warped – it's a technique that produces material genuinely resembling classic woven suiting, while feeling and functioning like a true knit. A less dense fiber makeup allows for more pliability and greater movement; and based on what we’ve learned from other Aviator garments, we knew we could enhance this range of motion even further by adding 4-way stretch to the fiber composition.
And so we set to develop a warp knit jacket and pants that, even with their increased flexibility, still retained structure and shape.
Stay Tuned, Part 2 on Monday
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